bank owned properties

Las Vegas has always been a place of dreams, promising that pennies could turn into fortunes, cities could rise from the desert, and property values could rise eternally. But you can also lose your shirt there, and the real estate crash has hit Sin City harder than anyplace else in the country.

For a while, it seemed the housing crisis had been averted. Now, Gary Shilling, president of economic consulting firm A. Gary Shilling & Co., says that things are likely to get worse. He predicts that housing prices could fall another 20%.

Many troubled homeowners in HAMP, the federal foreclosure relief program, end up losing their property anyway. Banks gain the most by delaying repossessing houses they can't sell, while collecting more monthly payments from strapped borrowers.